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Lea Goldberg (1911-1970) (Hebrew poet, author, critic and translator)
Lea Goldberg was born in Eastern Prussia and spent her childhood in Lithuania. During the First World War, her family were forced to move from town to town to escape the pogroms inflicted on the Jewish people. This traumatic period in Lea's life was later reflected in her books and poems.
She arrived in Tel-Aviv in 1935 where she worked as a schoolteacher and journalist. Whilst working on the editorial staff of the daily newspaper "Davar", she joined a group of modernist writers, headed by the poet, A. Shlonsky and her poetry was published in their literary magazines.
The style of Lea Goldberg's poetry is conversational and familiar. She wrote about childhood, nature and love in a direct and intuitive manner. Her poems reflect her insight and sensitivity to universal concerns. Lea Goldberg was also one of Israel's prominent children's writers. Israeli children, today, still enjoy her stories and poems. In 1952 she was invited to teach Comparative Literature at the Hebrew University and she continued teaching until the end of her days.
Lea Goldberg also wrote literary and theatrical criticisms and translated many European classics into Hebrew, such as Tolstoy's "War and Peace" and several plays by Shakespeare. Lea Goldberg's works are of major importance to the history of modern Hebrew literature. They have contributed to the establishment of modern Hebrew as a recognised literary language.
The stamp shows portraits of Lea Goldberg at different periods of her life. The tab shows a drawing by Lea Goldberg of the writer S. Y. Agnon and the poet A. Shlonsky.
Rahel (1890-1931) (Hebrew poet)
Rahel, pen name of Rahel Bluwstein, was born in Saratov in northern Russia to a family who emphasized the importance of culture, education, tradition and Hibat Zion (Love of Zion). In 1909, she and her sister visited Eretz Israel and they extended their stay to one year. Rahel fell in love with the land and became a pioneer, working on a farm, Kinneret, by the Sea of Galilee. In 1913 she went to Toulouse to study agronomy, intending to return to Eretz Israel to contribute to the development of modern agriculture.
When the outbreak of World War I prevented her from returning to Eretz Israel she went back to Russia where she contracted tuberculosis. She returned in 1919 settled in Kibbutz Degania 'A' but was unable to continue an agricultural life because of her illness. She had to spend the rest of her life in Tel-Aviv.
In her poems, Rahel expressed the values of the Second and Third Aliyah, the waves of pioneering immigrants who had laid the cultural, social and political foundations of the Jewish community or "Yishuv" and of the State of Israel. Her works express both a "Zionism of love" and a woman's love, together with the anguished cry of the individual protesting the bitter fate that sends him plunging from lofty heights to the depths of the abyss; from a happy childhood to an incurable disease and solitude. Rahel was not a "professional" poet in the normal sense. Her aspiration was to till the soil.
Sixty years after her death, Rahel's poems can be heard on the radio and television as popular songs of Israel.
The stamp shows portraits of Rahel at different periods of her life. The tab shows a view of the Sea of GaIilee, from the cemetery where she is buried.
Sarah Aaronsohn (1890-1917) (Martyr heroine)
Sarah Aaronsohn was born and educated in Zikhron Ya'aqov. In 1914, her family arranged her marriage to Haim Avraham, a Bulgarian Jew, and they went to live in Constantinople. She greatly missed her family and her country and after a year she returned to visit. At that time the "NILI" organisation was being established to help the British capture Eretz Israel. Sarah joined her brother Aaron as one of the prominent leaders of the "NILI" organisation and was involved in Intelligence operations which provided information to the British in Egypt. In October 1917, Ottoman soldiers reached Zikhron Ya'aqov and arrested many residents including Sarah. She was brutally tortured but disclosed nothing. She eventually put an end to her suffering by committing suicide.
The stamp shows portraits of Sarah Aaronsohn at different periods of her life. The tab shows the Aaronsohn House in Zik ron Ya'aqov, which today houses a museum dedicated to the "NILI" Organisation.